The Wishing Creek
The Wishing Creek
Chapter 1
Beatrix walked along the edge of the creek with the water hurrying beside her, twisting like charcoal wool before braiding into white, springy rapids. Unlike the rushing current, she was in no hurry. She considered every excuse possible to avoid delivering the silly thank-you card to Mr. Griffin and slowed her pace enough to hand a skittering squirrel a few nuts from her jacket pocket. It came within inches of her, then closer still, taking one nut with its impossibly tiny claws, but the crows shrieked, and the squirrel scampered away.
Perhaps, she could tell her mother that a squirrel took off with the card. It wouldn’t be entirely implausible. After all, nature could be unpredictable and the path to Mr. Griffin’s house snaked along the creek and through the pine woods, the very essence of nature. No driveway could reach his side of the creek.
The walk didn’t bother Beatrix, merely the task itself. She travelled beside the creek to get anywhere—school, the corner store for sour sharks, the library for the overstocked nonfiction wall. If she walked a mile and a half, she could watch the creek feed into the Connecticut River and then follow it north to Hartford. Perhaps, she could tell her mom she took a wrong turn. Got lost somewhere across state lines. She would have to deliver the card another day. A sunny, warm day sometime next year.
Beatrix had never met Mr. Griffin. In fact, she had never even seen him despite being his sort-of neighbor for her entire twelve years. If it weren’t for her mother’s assurances, she wouldn’t believe he existed. She had never spied an old man of his description standing in line for the ferris wheel at the town’s summer fair or shopping during the holiday season at the stretch of decorated shops on Main Street. She never encountered anybody during her endless hours at the creek, collecting water and soil samples for her scientific experiments.
While Beatrix was content to believe in Mr. Griffin’s non-existence, her classmates interpreted his near invisibility with wild creativity, crafting rumors about his demeanor and appearance. They thoroughly spooked the younger grades with speculations about how he lived as a hermit crab eating worms in the dirt, about how his creepy house would one day sink into the creek, about his black eyes that could see death. Beatrix didn’t believe that last part for a second, knowing full well and good that all incredible stories came from someone’s imagination.
The creek roared. Whooooooosh. Shhh. Shhhh.
Beatrix continued walking and contemplating excuses, seemingly oblivious to the murder of crows cawing wildly overhead and the breeze that picked up, swirling around a darkening sky. At the boulder marking the property boundary, she resigned herself to the unpleasant task and turned into the pine forest. Despite the cold, her sweaty palms dampened the envelope of the card. It’s just make believe, she said quietly to herself, thinking about the stories about Mr. Griffin’s eyes. Science always wins.
Beatrix wished her mother had drawn her a map to follow, something with precise measurements and coordinates. Instead, she had to interpret colorful descriptions about how to find the house. She paused at the boulder and looked up to locate an eagle’s nest at the top of the tallest tree. That step came easily given the bare limbs and the enormity of the nest. Once she positioned herself beneath it, she was able to brush some leaves away with her foot to locate the beginning of the sandy path, which her mother had told her to follow.
To Beatrix’s surprise, the supposed sandy path smashed beneath her feet like mud as she weaved in and out of the tall trees. She found it very odd. Her rain gauge, fastened sturdily to the fence in her backyard, had indicated their county was in a drought (leading her to collect more soil samples to track the impact on nutrient levels and pH). This side of the creek would need its own rain gauge…and barometer, too.
With enough bend in her knees, Beatrix managed to stay upright. She moved steadily and stably, fearing she’d be up to her waist in mud if she didn’t keep moving. When she finally stopped looking at her feet, she saw Mr. Griffin’s house, which came into view like a painting left haphazardly on the side of the road—not obvious, but once you see it, you can’t unsee it and wonder what happened.
What she saw was, in fact, a sinking house.
The two-story home sunk heavily into the ground at least a foot and tilted dramatically to the left as though it were a sinking ship taking on water—plunging the bow beneath the water line and pushing the stern upward to its demise. It wasn’t just the fact that the house had partially sunk into the ground that made it appear strange. The entire roof was hunter green, lime green, and chocolate brown, covered in moss or ground cover or something resembling earth, as though the house grew out of a seed in the soil. As though it pushed its way up through the earth. Ironic now that it was sinking back in.
A pointy roof stood tall above the front door. Beatrix rolled a few words on her tongue trying to remember the shape. As a newly minted eighth grader, she felt an obligation to get it right. Isopod. Icicle. Isosceles. That was it. An isosceles triangle, taller than it was wide. Besides the pointy entryway roof, the house sloped and rose and dipped. Oval windows, curved awnings, even the bricks appeared egg-shaped. No straight lines. No straight anything. The whole thing looked waterlogged and lumpy.
A shiny mailbox pinned beside the front door caught her eye, glimmering with unblemished silver. The metal edges showed no signs of rust, no wear and tear, as though brand new and waiting for correspondence. Beatrix only needed to drop the envelope in the slot and merrily be on her way. She would deliver the card and never think about these things again.